Golf is a popular sport that requires practice. One way to acquire practice is to visit a driving range to practice hitting golf balls. However, once at the driving range, a person must continually bend over to pick up a ball to place it on a tee. This requires a break in the continuity of practice, and it prevents the person from improving his golf swing while maintaining an upright stance. Moreover, beding down to place the ball onto the tee can cause discomfort to people with back problems.
Another problem with present driving ranges is that the person must obtain a token from a pro shop, walk over to a central golf ball dispenser to obtain an allotment of golf balls and then carry the golf balls in a bucket over to a hitting station where he manually positions each ball on the tee. Besides being inconvenient, this procedure further disrupts practice since the person must revisit the central dispenser each time the person wishes to obtain additional golf balls.
An additional concern among driving range operators is the degree of human involvement needed to operate the range. Present driving range operation is labor intensive. For example, a person is needed to dispense tokens, to collect golf balls and to deliver the golf balls to the central golf ball dispenser.
What is needed is an apparatus that automatically places a golf ball on a tee or a green mat. This type of apparatus would have the benefit to permit the user to maintain an upright position during practice so that the person's muscle memory can develop an improved swing without continually bending over to position a ball on the tee. Also, this type of apparatus would have the further benefit to position the ball on the tee at the hitting station, rather than requiring the person to walk to a central dispenser to receive an allotment of golf balls. Additionally, automation would reduce the reliance on labor and allow expanded operating hours.